All posts tagged ‘gadgets’

CES is one of my favorite conferences to attend, because it offers a small glimpse into the future. Sometimes it’s an alternate future where crazy and impractical products are funded and introduced, but it’s a great way to see trends. A lot of companies pre-announce products that they plan to introduce later in the year, so you can’t always count on the product actually hitting the shelves.

This year, sensors are all over the place. Parrot is introducing a sensor that will tell you when your plants need to be watered. It also comes with an app to tell you about plant care, so even people who thought they were brown thumbs would have a chance at gardening. An entire section of the trade show floor is dedicated to step sensors, heart monitors, and other self-care sensors that work with your smart phone. There’s even a fork that senses how fast you eat and gives you feedback to encourage slower meals. Several companies introduced sensors that can be used to track lost children or adults. One company cleverly had the sensor inside a phone-watch that could be called by up to five different pre-approved numbers.

Your next phone is probably going to be a phablet, and it’s probably going to be waterproof. It’s going to connect wirelessly with everything using NFC assist to make Bluetooth pairing faster, and it’s going to charge inductively. Companies would really like you to upgrade your TV into an ultra-high resolution screen. Sony is even willing to re-digitize portions of their media holdings to get you to do it. Sony didn’t mention a word about 3D TV, by the way. Hisense introduced a glasses-free 3D TV. (The results were better than one of those Cracker Jack prizes that you tilt to see it move, but still not as good as The Hobbit in high frame rate.)

There are also battling robots in the future, and your car will always know where you’ve parked (and probably will rat you out to your insurance company if you speed). Your camera will run Android, even if it is not your phone. No hover boards so far, but there are a few days of trade show left.

Being a geek and a parent means you are always carrying around extra items. Whether you’ve got cell phones, pacifiers, cameras, snacks, water bottles, or business cards, you need extra pockets to carry it all.

Scottevest is a company specializing in clothing with plenty of extra pockets. Mostly designed to hold your gadgets, the pockets will also easily accommodate kid-related items. Their offerings run the gamut from vests to dresses, depending on your needs.

Gift-giving holidays in geek homes almost always include some gadget or other, or perhaps a dozen of them. Here are some gadgets and accessories chosen by our GeekMom writers that would be perfect to give your loved ones this holiday season. What favorite gadgets have we neglected to include? Mention them in the comments below.

Image: Apple

The New iPad and iPad Mini
From $329
First on the list of many geeks this year may be the new iPad Mini, or the New iPad (AKA the iPad 3). Cheaper and smaller than the regular sized iPads, the Mini has the same memory options, and is more portable. I certainly covet one, but won’t be able to justify it for a while. I’ll have to live vicariously through the rest of you.

Image: ioSafe

ioSafe Rugged External Hard Drives
From $249.99
If you prefer your computer to be backed up locally instead of, or in addition to, on the cloud, any product from ioSafe is a very good choice. Solid, reliable hardware combined with fire- and waterproof technology gives you confidence that your data will be safe, regardless of natural or other disasters. ioSafe also makes more portable hard drives, and are branching out into NAS (Network Attached Storage).

Image: Idapt

Idapt Charging Station
$49.99
If you have a variety of devices to charge, don’t go hunting around the house for the right charger. The Idapt charging station has many tips available for different kinds and brands of devices, including those that charge via USB. Simplify your charging station with an Idapt unit.

Image: emWave

emWave2 Portable Biofeedback Device
$229
Learn to control your stress and anxiety with this portable biofeedback device. It will help you calm down, combat stress, or fight panic attacks. It can help you achieve certain goals such as relaxation, or awareness of your heart rate and breathing. And it’s small enough to fit in your pocket. The accompanying software gives you even more options for use.

Image: Tenqa

Tenqa Bluetooth Headphones
$39
Free yourself from cords and use these headphones with any Bluetooth-enabled device. Watch movies on your iPad, play games on your laptop, or listen to music on your iPod. These rechargeable headphones last seemingly forever on a charge and allow you to move around while you watch or listen.

Talking on a cell phone is no big deal for kids. (Photo By Bridgit Goldman.)

I was visiting a friend from high school and we took a photo of ourselves on my ipod. Then I remembered that Bump app. We downloaded it and knocked our phones together so she could have a copy of the photo too. After grumbling about some tech issues with the app, we started giggling in disbelief. When we first met, beepers were the biggest technological marvel, the internet was something we heard college kids got, heck, the majority of my friends didn’t have a computer in their homes. Photos on a portable phone? We touch them to share? We’re living in a science fiction show! We then talked about how we wish we were born later so we could have dominated YouTube with all the stupid things we used to video tape (yes, analog VIDEO tape.) But what a world. Star Trek is happening around us.

I mentioned this on Facebook, and got a comment that Twitter reminded them of a Borg hive. Another comment was about watching their kids learn on an iPad, and texting to keep track of their teenagers. Here’s a cool little graphic about this topic on Nerd-Base.

In chatting with my family, my husband was quick to point out that we’ve come farther than Star Trek could imagine in many areas. He pointed to the bigger-than-a-bread-box computer on Kirk’s desk while recording his daily log. But my husband did admit that video conferences in today’s world are pretty amazing. It used to be these huge screens with a hi-tech person guiding the whole process. Now we can see anyone’s face on their hand-held device. (Of course there is our obvious lack of interstellar space travel that Star Trek has…)

My children have grown up in this world, and yet they also see the marvels. My son mentioned there is an episode in The Universe that compares real technology to science fiction hopes. He said that communication today is more advanced than any Star Trek episode. My daughter mentioned that she always imagines memory storage devices are like a Mary Poppins bag because they can hold so much in such a tiny space.

What about you? Look around. What makes you feel like you’re living in someone else’s imagination of the future?

I spent much time last summer attempting to perfect the popsicle. I purchased plastic containers at my local grocery store and tried to create the perfect, cheap, summer sucker for my son. I tried yoghurt blends, real fruit, juice, Kool-Aid, and anything else I could think of to freeze. Reluctant to use spray to line the plastic, I got very mixed, uneven results. My son wasn’t especially keen on anything I offered him, and it was a very messy, sticky experiment and so back to the pre-made we went.

This summer, I got it right. This summer is the summer of the Zoku. It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, it even looks the part, but the Zoku is an innovative piece of technology that has greatly added to our summertime fun. Without the use of electricity, the Zoku pop maker will freeze a popsicle in 7-9 minutes once you have simply frozen the base for 24 hours beforehand. Try as I might, I could not discover what this wonder product was that freezes liquid so easily. The closest the Zoku website comes to revealing the contents are by saying that the “liquid refrigerant” is non-toxic, they are also keen to point out that the device is BPA free. Zoku is very tight lipped about its patent information, their PR company will only reveal that it uses patented heat exchanger technology that is combined with a proprietary non-toxic refrigerant.

It’s a problem when you have one device running low on batteries, but it’s even more difficult when you have two or three all in need of a little juice. I’ve run into this on road trips with my family. We’ve each got a gadget but the car only has two outlets so that means a spiderweb of wires and splitters. It also means we’re all searching for outlets at hotel stops and then trying not to leave anything behind the next day. The myCharge Portable Power Bank 6000 is an easy solution to this problem.

If there’s one thing I really hate doing, it’s housework. I’m sure this revelation doesn’t exactly make me all that unique but it’s true nonetheless and almost certainly something you can relate to. However there is one specific household job I loathe above most others and that is cleaning the windows. You see at least with other jobs, the end result is positive; when I iron my clothes they go from being messy to being neat, when I clean my kitchen counters they go from dirty to clean. That’s not the case with cleaning windows because when I’ve actually bothered to do it, they’ve always gone from being dirty to being clean but covered in so many streaks they actually look worse than when I started. If there’s anything more galling than wasting precious time doing boring chores, it’s doing them for no real benefit.

When I saw the new Kärcher Window Vac advertised I was immediately interested. The Vac is a handheld suction device that claims to leave windows completely streak free after cleaning. Naturally I was dubious, after all I’ve fallen prey to these kinds of claims before (how many magical fluids do you have in your home right now simply because they’ve claimed to do something miraculous, only to fail spectacularly? (I’m looking at you frizz reducing hair serum…) However I wanted to test these claims for myself, so I contacted Kärcher and they kindly sent me a Vac to try out at home. Firstly, the Vac is incredibly easy to use and also light enough that I can carry it around the house without feeling like I’m lifting weights, even when it’s full of water at the end of a mammoth cleaning session. Tech wise it’s quite simple, a suction device attached to a rubber nozzle that simply sucks up the water (or any liquid) quickly before it has a chance to leave marks on your surfaces, which is where most streaks come from. To clean windows you spray on your chosen detergent, clean with a cloth and then use the Vac to suck off the remaining moisture. It’s fast too — I cleaned a pair of patio doors in under three minutes which is fairly akin to a miracle in my eyes, especially as these windows were filthy thanks to my cats and toddler putting their noses all over them. Noise-wise it’s a bit quieter than my hoover which means I’ll be able to use it during nap time without worrying about waking my son up which is always a bonus.

But what about the big question: Does it actually leave your windows streak free? Yes, it does!
Providing you use it correctly, it leaves windows and more completely streak free — a product that actually lives up to its advertising hype, whoever imagined such a thing? Unfortunately, one thing I discovered on testing the Vac for this review is that it’s nigh on impossible to take photos of the cleanliness or otherwise of glass. It is possible however to take photos of stainless steel, on which the Window Vac also works exceptionally well. I took these two photos of the waste bin in one of our bathrooms which I cleaned twice. The first time around I cleaned it and used paper towels to dry it off, this left it covered in streaks no matter how hard I tried to avoid them. I re-cleaned the bin in exactly the same way (same cleaning product and cloth) and used the Window Vac to dry it which left no streaks. These photos have had their contrast boosted and have been sharpened identically in order to show the difference more clearly. However, no alterations to the images themselves have been made.

The Window Vac can be used for other tasks besides cleaning windows and stainless steel. Mirrors, shower doors and tiles can all be dried streak-free using the Vac, you can also use it to get rid of condensation which isn’t a problem in my house but could be very useful indeed in older houses prone to damp. It can also be used to rapidly mop up spills on hard floors without needing to use paper towels or cloths. For anyone with toddlers or pets, this could be the miracle you’ve been waiting for as wet paw prints and spilled milk vanish in seconds. As with the glass cleaning I was highly doubtful of the picture on the website that shows someone easily sucking up a spilled glass of red wine so I tested it out myself using a glass of water (dyed with some blue food coloring so it would show up on camera) and you can see the result below, just as good as advertised.

I also tested the Vac out on our car. I mentioned before about needing to use the Vac properly to get the streak free results. Basically that means the nozzle head of the Vac needs to be pressed completely flat against the surface you are trying to clean. This means that any surface which is not completely flat, such as the undulating surface of our car’s hood, won’t clean as perfectly as a flat window. The Vac still does a great job on these surfaces, you just may find a few streaks where it lifted away from the surfaces. I found a similar problem with a few of our smaller windows where the nozzle head was just a little too wide to fit inside the frame so one side was always lifted away from the glass. Some newer editions of the Window Vac now come with a smaller nozzle head attachment, and if you already own one you can also buy these smaller heads as an accessory — if you have small windows then this is almost certainly worth the extra money. If you clean your own car then the Vac is a very useful tool to have if you want to avoid streaks on your pride and joy, and as the nozzle head is made from soft rubber it won’t damage your paintwork.

The Window Vac is not a cheap addition to your household arsenal. In fact, at around $70 it’s probably one of the most expensive cleaning gadgets you’ll own. Whether it’s worth purchasing is almost certainly going to depend on your home and how you run it. If you wash your own windows, own a conservatory, have big mirrored wardrobes in your bedroom or have an indoor pool, chances are the Vac will be worth its weight in gold just for the time it will save you. For those in smaller homes or apartments it’s probably less valuable, but it still has plenty of uses in such dwellings such as cleaning up after children or helping you wash the car. I’m a huge fan of the Window Vac even with my small (certainly by American size standards) house because it saves me time, and for me that’s the biggest benefit any product can give me.

The Mother’s Day gift guide is an easy one for us GeekMoms–all we have to do is list what we want. Chances are your GeekMom will enjoy some of the things on this list as well, and she’ll appreciate the creativity and ingenuity in your gift buying.

Nothing says zombie apocalypse like wearing a zombie virus around your neck. This necklace uses glo glass that collects light and will glow in the dark. This and other glowing jewelry can be found from Raven’s Rest.

Instead of presenting flowers to your GeekMom in a plain vase of water, try out these delightfully different Water Beads for a colorful twist. The package of very small beads will swell up into a vase full of pearlescent orbs to keep your flowers upright and hydrated.

For something your GeekMom can play with the whole family, how about Awkward Family Photos, the board game? Some GeekMoms may be relieved to see there are other families out there even stranger than hers.

Think of the underwater possibilities! Photo: Nicole Wakelin

The outdoor-loving GeekMom will love the LifeProof iPhone case that will let her take all the pictures she wants this summer without worrying about sand and water destroying her phone. It really can swim with the fish!

Show mom you care with a set of pewter tentacles. Photo: Dellamorte & Co.

Perhaps the biggest ticket item the GeekMoms would like is a Brother PE770 embroidery machine that embroiders any design you can computer generate. Think of the Etsy side business and the ability to map imaginary realms on any t-shirt!

The GeekMoms would also like world peace, ecological harmony, thick hair, a backyard pergola, and possibly an animatronic dinosaur.

I didn’t break into the bears’ house, but I tried three different fitness monitoring devices this year and found the one that was just right.

I didn’t care for the BodyMedia, because it was uncomfortable to wear and offered no immediate visual feedback on your progress. I also found issue with the fact that they charged a subscription fee in order to use the deviec at all. I did like that it monitored sleep and offered a way to log your calorie intake.

I liked the Striiv, because it was simple, fun, and motivating. I also liked that it didn’t require syncing, and it wasn’t uncomfortable to wear. Just put it in your pocket or purse, and you were good to go. However, it didn’t allow you to log calories or track weight loss, and there are no app tie-ins.

The Fitbit, priced at $99, offers a best of both worlds compromise. It’s pretty tiny and very comfortable to wear. You can clip it to your pocket or belt, or they suggest some women just wear it on their bra. It doesn’t specifically measure sweat or heart rate like the BodyMedia does, but it can tell the difference between regular foot steps and stairs, you can use it to track sleep, and it has a visual display for feedback when you need it. It also offers a lot of options for manually tracking weight, calories, and other health markers. They use a freemium model, where basic website services are free and advanced options are offered to paid subscribers.

Immediate Feedback

The Fitbit is simple. There’s only one button, and pushing it lights up the display and switches between modes. You can see your steps, your stairs, you calories, and a flower you can “grow” by increasing your activity during the day. It’s not as fun as the Striiv’s many forms of motivation, but it’s enough to keep you motivated to move. You can combine it with apps for Android or iPhone to add badges and other motivators.

Syncing

The Fitbit charges through a USB base station, but a recharge lasts for several days. Once you install the desktop software (available for both Macs and Windows), you shouldn’t normally have to think about syncing. The Fitbit device automatically attempts to wirelessly sync every 15 minutes, and it will also sync when you recharge.

I had my Fitbit stop syncing once while testing it, and following the support instructions on the website, I uninstalled the desktop software and reset the device. It worked fine and didn’t lose any data.

Beyond Steps – Monitoring Sleep and More

In order to track your sleep, the Fitbit ships with a wrist band. You put the Fitbit in the wrist band, and then press down on the device’s button until the stopwatch appears (this stopwatch can be used to measure aerobic activity, too). Use the button to switch it out of sleep mode. What it measures is how quickly you settle to sleep and how much you stir in the night. If you forget to put it into sleep mode or turn it off, you can manually enter your sleep stop and start times on the Fitbit website.

Screen Capture

The Fitbit website offers a lot of value even to the free user. It tracks weight and allows historical entries. I hate apps that insist you only started dieting the moment you started using their program. You can also manually track BMI, body measurements, glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate. If you want to track something not listed – cups of coffee, push-ups, or swear words for example, you can make a custom tracker to log the data.

If you buy a premium account, it’s $49 per year and offers you enhanced reports and comparisons with your peers. It also offers a virtual trainer and the ability to export your data in spreadsheet formats.

Syncing – Other Apps and Devices

The Fitbit allows you to sync with the Withings WiFi Body Scale , which means you could weigh yourself in the morning and save the step of needing to write it down. Fitbit has an import wizard that will pull in historical data on this as well. Fitbit is also coming out with their own WiFi scale called the Aria, which will track BMI as well as weight.

You can also sync your Fitbit account with a wide variety of free and premium mobile apps and websites, including Microsoft Health Vault, My Fitness Pal, Lose It!, Endomondo, and more. That means you can still use many of your favorite apps to log your calorie intake while using Fitbit to track your activity levels. You can also unlock new and interesting ways to get motivated by combining apps that aren’t traditionally considered diet or exercise apps. You can even link it to your Foursquare account!

This year has definitely seen a coming of age for health apps and gadgets. Engineers have also started to find a sense of fun. I can’t wait to see what other devices are around the corner. Full disclosure: Fitbit provided me with a sample device for the purposes of this review.

Last week I reviewed the Striiv, and this week I’ll look at the BodyMedia FIT system. Full disclosure: I was provided with a review unit of the CORE system for this evaluation.

The BodyMedia FIT CORE is available from Amazon and other stores starting at $143 for the basic device, but it’s worth it for the slight upgrade to the version with Bluetooth. They’re also releasing a short term, disposable version that adheres to the skin for a week. The BodyMedia device came in part from the skunkworks at Carnegie Mellon and uses technology developed by IBM.

The strength of the BodyMedia system is that it provides more information than a simple pedometer or activity meter. In addition to steps it can measure periods of intense activity and your sleep levels and quality. The BodyMedia system also allows you to manually track your calories, measurement, and weight. The advantage is that you can more accurately keep track of most of the crucial factors impacting weight loss and see it all in one place.

Mobile Apps

BodyMedia provides both Android and iOS versions of their mobile app. For the CORE model with no Bluetooth, this provides a historical record of data transferred to the BodyMedia website when you charge the device on your computer via USB. For LINK users, you can see a snapshot of your current activity via Bluetooth. It’s one of the reasons upgrading to the Bluetooth version is worth it for this system. Without a Bluetooth connection, you’re stuck examining historical data. You can’t see anything as it happens.

The mobile app also allows you to enter calorie information, and the Bluetooth connected device can also give you a mobile workout accompanied to music you’ve stored on your phone. The Bluetooth connection makes sure your workout is effective.

If you don’t have a smartphone and you do want to see real-time data, you can get a watch-like display accessory for around $99. It only works with the models without Bluetooth.

Weight Loss and Permanent Armbands

Screen Capture

BodyMedia claims that this system is clinically proven to help with weight loss, and I believe it. If you can see a behavior, you can change the behavior. However, it’s also the most intrusive of the systems I’ve looked at. Why? To use the system properly, you must wear the armband on your upper arm for 23 out of 24 hours per day. Take it off to charge while you shower, and then put it back on. I spoke with BodyMedia CEO Christine Robins at CES, and she assured me that after five days, most people no longer noticed that they were wearing an armband.

Personally, I did notice I was wearing an armband, and although it became more natural, it never became second nature. It also interfered with clothing choices. Although I could hide the armband under my sleeve, it always seemed either too tight or too loose. It would occasionally fall off, and it was uncomfortable for me to wear while sleeping. Other people may not run into this issue.

Subscription Plans

The BodyMedia devices cost more than either Striiv or FitBit. Fair enough. They also provide more data. However, you can’t use the device at all unless you have a subscription plan on the BodyMedia website. The plan is currently $6.95 per month with the first three months free. If you genuinely lose weight on this system, that’s still cheaper than many systems.

To be fair, you also get analysis, advice, and suggested routines. You can specify that you want to lose one pound per week, and BodyMedia’s Activity Manager website will tell you the activity level you need to maintain in order to achieve it. You can avoid weight loss pitfalls like crash diets and lousy sleep patterns, and you earn badges when you achieve a new personal best.

Overall

This is a tool for the dedicated dieter with a long-term plan. You have to commit to wearing a band on your arm, which may be visibile at times with your clothing choices. You have to commit to calorie tracking, weigh-ins, and data review along with a monthly subscription plan. This is a powerful choice for people making a serious commitment.

It’s also a rather dry commitment. You must be internally motivated by the raw data. While they offer badges for achieving personal bests, it’s hardly the exciting games and walkathons of the Striiv. BodyMedia has opened up their API to developers, so we may end up seeing more fun and games with the armband in the future. I certainly hope so. There’s a lot of competition out there, and BodyMedia just isn’t exciting me yet.

I just got back from CES, and boy is it great to be back where there aren’t over 150,000 people competing for Internet access. As it turned out, I walked close to two marathons in Las Vegas during during my week at the show.

Lots of people asked me what cool things I’d seen at the show, and I’d find myself repeatedly reaching into my pocket and pulling out my Striiv. (Full disclosure: I was provided with a review unit.) I’ve tried a lot of fitness devices, and I was sometimes wearing three at once during CES, but this was by far my favorite. It’s hard to make technology well, but it’s even harder to make technology fun. [Editor’s Note: GeekMom Amy Kraft has also given Striiv a thumb’s up.]

The Striiv is a small pedometer with a touch screen interface. It’s available from Amazon for a retail price of $99. The charge lasts approximately one week, and it uses a generic USB interface for charging and logging activity. It also comes with a keychain or belt holder. Out of curiosity, I left it in my pajama pockets as I slept, and it logged no steps from my tossing and turning, but it did just fine logging steps – a lot of steps – on the CES floor.

Ok, so it logs steps. What’s so special about that?

The Striiv interface logs steps and also gives you equivalent stairs, miles, and calories and tracks your averages over time. That’s great info, but just getting raw data isn’t enough. Striiv makes it fun. It awards badges for achievements like burning off an ice cream sundae or walking the distance of the Grand Canyon. You can also play a gardening game that uses the power of your foot energy to grow plants and bring back virtual animals to your own enchanted island.

Image courtesy Striiv

Every Day Is a Walkathon

One of the most motivating features I found was the real world charity donations. You can choose between clean water, rain forest preservation, or polio vaccines. Once you walk enough, your steps will achieve real-world donations to your chosen causes from Striiv and corporate partners. Don’t feel motivated to walk for yourself? Walk to provide a child with clean drinking water or a polio vaccine.

Image courtesy Striiv

Extra Challenges

When you check your steps, you’ll sometimes be offered extra challenges, like reach 114 steps in five minutes. You make a point bet that you can complete the challenge within the time limit, and you’re rewarded if you succeed but penalized if you fail. You can also spin the wheel and give yourself challenges anytime you feel like it. If you have a friend or spouse with a Striiv, you can make bets with each other (over short range and only with the newest devices).

In short, if you’re shopping for a pedometer, don’t settle for dry data. Find a device that motivates you to move. The Striiv has it, and I saw nothing but raves from the people using them, including Christy Matte, the fellow mom blogger and educational technologist who first showed me her Striiv and told me I just had to meet the company. She was right.

Once upon a time I dreamed of owning a watch that would not only tell time, but have multiple alarms and a calculator that had more functions than I could hope to understand. I remember when calculator watches first appeared and I remember the first kid in school that showed up with one after Christmas. His name was Billy and he rolled his sleeves up just so everyone could see the wonder of his watch. We all crowded around his desk while he showed us how he could easily do complex math. Okay, it was grade school so the math wasn’t that complex, but it was cool.

The buttons on this watch were impractically small for his fingers, even as a kid, so I can’t imagine how a grown man used one of those things. Pushing tiny buttons is tricky business and the buttons on these watches were even smaller than what you have to deal with on phones. Billy eventually resorted to pushing them with the eraser end of his pencil.

As impractical as this watch was, it was ridiculously popular and I wanted one more than anything. No, I didn’t need help with math and I can’t recall a single moment as a kid when I truly needed a calculator at the ready. It didn’t matter. The thing was the latest and greatest and I wanted one. Badly.

I never did get one. I did have a very cool Star Wars watch with Threepio and R2 which made me very happy, but it didn’t do anything but tell time. Meh. You’d think, given the fact that calculator watches were so large they were sort of like two panels that bent in the middle to accommodate the curve of your wrist, that they would have been abandoned within minutes of launch, but their popularity lasted from the late seventies all through the eighties. Even Marty McFly sported one in Back to the Future so you know they were a big thing.

Now, these watches are incredibly nerdy. So much so that they may actually make pocket protectors look cool. We all have phones that do more than our watch, phone, TV, typewriter, and calculators combined did twenty years ago so we don’t really need calculator wristwatches. Even Bill Gates, he of Nerd Royalty, couldn’t bring them back despite a valiant effort.

Microsoft’s SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) included an over sized watch that was supposed to keep you connected with news, weather and sports. It came out in 2004 and would have made the eighties version of me absolutely giddy. It would have secured the top spot on my Christmas list and it would have made Billy’s stupid calculator watch look totally lame.

Alas, the attempt to revive the glory days of the overcomplicated watch have failed. Production of the watch ended a few years ago and those who own one found it useless as of January 1, 2012 when all support for the service ended.

I can’t help but wonder, though, if there’s another cool gadget watch in the future. I know, we all have phones that do it all anyway But you have to put your phone in your pocket and then take it out and hold it to do anything I still want a gadget on my wrist. One that will add and subtract and possibly activate my jet-pack. Is that really too much to ask?

Time.com’s Techland brings us this funny roundup of bad gadgety gifts for Mother’s Day. Although I bet some of us wouldn’t mind the gift of a wireless router, this video’s best advice is unequivocably true: Beware of crap.

Ellen Henderson is a novelist and web strategist. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband and son.

Santa Claus was generous in the Tylbon household this year. Lots of Disney Princess gear, a cat piano, and most popular, the Leapfrog Tag Reader and a selection of books.

Normally, I resist buying things that pin me into one set of purchases. I like options and price comparison and open-source items. For instance, I love the GeoTrax Train sets, as does my daughter, but you are pigeonholed into buying GeoTrax accessories. Barbies are fine because, while they are a popular brand, other companies now make accessories that work just fine with the Barbie line. If buying a toy dooms me to buying more pieces of the same toy, I tend to resist it. I make exceptions for Lego (although heaven knows the brand is now so extensive there is no end of options, so Lego almost doesn’t count as a brand specific buyer-trap.)

The Tag Reading System only works with Tag books and products. But never fear, there is an exception to every rule. These books are fantastic. Each page is loaded with all sorts of information, games, quotes, and teachable moments, not to mention the story itself. I also got my daughter the World Map and that is one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I mounted the physical side of the map to the wall and she will stand there with her Tag Pen for hours, tapping away, filling her blonde little head with all sorts of invaluable knowledge. The investment was definitely worth it.

The best part of the whole thing is she can do it by herself. There had been great debate as to whether the Tag or the Tag Junior would be the wiser investment. I don’t regret the Tag at all. The selection of books is a little broader and the time line for usage is greatly extended. The box says ages 4-8, but my three year old doesn’t have one ounce of issue with it. The pen itself is still wide enough that she doesn’t have a problem gripping and controlling it. It took just a moment to convince her how to hold it. Unlike Tag Junior, you have to hold the pen a certain way or the sensor can’t see the book. But after a minute or two she caught on and can pick it up correctly every time now.

The Tag doesn’t have to be told what to do. It does it all by itself. She can tap the various symbols, drag the pen across a word, touch the pictures, and the Tag listens to her demands, never failing. You can have it read the story as a whole, page by page, line by line, or word by word, depending on how you (or, really, your child) chooses. The story lines of the books themselves remind me a little bit of the Dollar Store versions of the stories. They are a little choppy, greatly abbreviated, and not always in the most logical order if comparing it to the original movie, show, or book. But the books are littered with all sorts of interactive activities, easter eggs, and all sorts of fun. Given that they are targeted to a primary school audience, I think they’ll pass critique.

The Tag manages to congratulate your child on an accomplishment without sounding forced, fake-y, or condescending, a common issue with many teaching toys. When you win an award for completing a game in the Tag books, it celebrates with you instead of for you. The LeapFrog Connect program (required for operation) is easy to install and use, and has thus far not shown any tendency to being a virus magnet or buggy. When you purchase a book you have to hook the tag up to your PC using the provided USB cable and download the audio file for the book. I operate off a Mifi and this still took no time at all. Maybe twenty minutes for all 10 books and the world map. The prompts are not overdone for those of us with a little computer experience, yet still simple enough that even the most tech-challenged GeekMom can get it to cooperate. Unfortunately, you do need a computer and Internet access for the Tag to work. The packaging doesn’t make that too terribly clear.

This is my daughter’s first official geek toy and she has taken to it like a fish to water. (*JennT beams here*) In fact, tonight, after I had put her down for bed, I heard her rustling around a bit and she got out of bed. This is odd for her. She is a good kid and typically does not get out of bed once she is down. She doesn’t always go to sleep, but she normally stays put. I stood up to see what she was up to when I heard the Tag turn on. She had grabbed a book and the Tag and climbed back into bed for a little nighttime reading. The mom alarms in my head went off and I knew I should go in there, take the toy away, and send her back to bed with a stern warning about bedtime and being a good listener. But the geek bells were louder and I was absolutely soaring that if my daughter was going to break rules, she was going to do so for the sake of books and reading and her first Geek Gadget.

I HIGHLY (you know I mean it because I used all caps) recommend the LeapFrog Tag Reading System. It is reasonably priced, all things considered. The books seem a little painful at first go but the information encoded on the pages makes it like buying three different books for the price of one. I know Christmas has those toy boxes topped off pretty well, but Easter is just around the corner. Valentine’s Day works too. As does the second Tuesday of the month.

A little peace of mind goes a long way. Sure, I let my kid play with a wide array of gadgets. And that’s the way it should be. I find that the more he plays and values the gadgets the less likely he is to destroy them. However, when he was younger that was not so much the case. He dunked a cell phone of mine in water — twice — and spilled an entire glass of water on my netbook.

Now, there’s no such thing as 100% foolproof when it comes to your gadgets and potential destruction. But there are some things you can do to help prevent the worst-case scenario. For instance, there are DryDocs. The first year my husband took his beloved iPod to the beach, he put it in a Ziploc bag and trailed the earbuds out of it, lest some sand get into the gentle inner workings. It’s a good idea, but not exactly environmentally friendly; those little baggies only last so long. But the makers of DryDocs saw the cleverness in easy hacks such as these. With a thick, non-BPA plastic (which is puncture and slash-proof) they created a durable little case meant for any manner of gadget.

The best part? You can still use it when it’s in the bag. The plastic doesn’t hinder general use — not even talking (though if you’re an artist composing on the iPhone, it might get a little tricky). Not to mention it’s wonderfully inexpensive, in most cases under $10. That’s not a high price for peace of mind!

You can find DryDocs at REI. A fantastic stocking stuffer or last-minute present!

It has happened enough times now that I’m ready to vent. I’m all for new technology (heck, it’s how I get around every day, on my bionic foot), but there has to be a limit.

So I have come here to ask you, our faithful readers. What do you think? Let me explain, in three simple words, my problem. Cell Phone Manners.

Even though I’m married to a man who works for the highway department, and they have a huge non-distracted drivers campaign right now, that’s not my issue today. My problem concerns when and where a cell phone conversation is appropriate.

I work at a library. I’m the smiling lady (on most days) who checks your books out to you and your adorable kids. We have an interaction that lasts from 20 seconds to a couple of minutes. I’m sure you are not one of these people, but sometimes patrons decide it’s okay to approach the desk with a cell phone glued to their ear. This past week I had a woman actually initiate a call while she stood in front of me, like I wasn’t even there.

Now here’s the problem. First of all it feels very rude from my side of the desk. I’m a person, a human being who only requires a few minutes of your time. I work hard to be friendly and efficient. It helps me to be welcoming when the people on the other side of the desk acknowledge my existence.

Second, our specific library has signs all over the place that say no cell phones allowed. If someone has an emergency call to make, we have a lovely, warm entrance way where they can conduct their business. So why do so many people think those signs don’t apply to them? Why does their ‘just a quick call’ to their child, about what time they need to be picked up, make them immune from the courteous rules our board of directors set up?

So here’s my question – am I just being sensitive and bossy by being irritated by people using cell phones in our library, and more specifically while they approach my desk to check out books? Or am I a geekmom who’s behind the times and needs to lighten up? I’d love to know what you think.

We’re pretty lucky here at GeekMom to have the kind of advertisers we do. Starting this month, we welcome ThinkGeek to our list of great sponsors! Most of you already know ThinkGeek well, but in case you don’t, they are a catalog company based in northern Virginia. They sell geeky things. Very fun, interesting, awesome, playful, silly, sick, twisted, awesome, useful, comfortable, and awesome geeky things. Their sales categories include T-shirts & Apparel, Geek Toys, Gadgets, Home & Office, Computer Stuff, Caffeine & Edibles, Electronics, Geek Kids, and Books. (I was pretty excited when they added the kids’ category.)

Sure, I get their catalogs. But it recently occurred to me just how much stuff is on their website that doesn’t fit in printed material. Spend just five minutes on their site and you realize the depth and breadth of their stock. Watch the video of their amazing new warehouse and it will be even more obvious. You must visit their website to see just how much geeky stuff they have. It’s a pretty fun way to spend a few minutes, since many products have wacky Customer Action Shots and the descriptive text for products is quite entertaining.

Their adorable monkey, Timmy, is always dressing up in geeky costumes, and whoever runs their Twitter account makes me laugh out loud at least once per week. They are also well-known for their April Fool’s Day emails, which for 2009 eventually resulted in the actual Tauntaun Sleeping Bag.

My personal ThinkGeek item collection is extensive. Most of it I bought myself or was given as a birthday or holiday gift. Just a few of my items include: BuckyBalls, Electronic Bubble Wrap Keychain, UV Monkey, Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock T-shirt, Star Wars Venn Diagram T-shirt, Timmy the Monkey T-shirt, LED Blow On-Off Candles, and the new Heroine T-shirts. They also carry the official GeekDad T-shirt. There are many other products on their site that I still covet, such as Robobox Stencil and Pen Set, and the book Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do).

Chances are great that there are at least a dozen things on their site that appeal to your particular kind of geek. And if you’re a frequent ThinkGeek shopper, don’t forget to sign up for their GeekPoints. The more you buy, the more free stuff you can get in the future. And the points take a long time to expire, so you don’t even need to make frequent purchases to make GeekPoints useful.

Stay tuned over the next couple of months for a ThinkGeek giveaway and product reviews.

The ThinkGeek folks are great people who carry a fun collection of products, and they support people like geeky musician Marian Call in addition to GeekMom. Help us support them!